The eternal philosophy: a drug for self-destructing disease of a humankind

(based on my understanding of Sathya Sai Baba teachings)

The eternal philosophy (that is called by some an eastern religion) is represented by thousands of texts originated in ancient India. Written Upanishads are among oldest and most important spiritual texts of the planet Earth. Upanishads are an interesting lot, because - as opposite to other scientific books - they do not give detailed descriptions of particular aspects of our world, such as evolution of Universe, for example... Instead - they give us keys from the doors that lead to unlimited knowledge. Each of us, actually, already has this knowledge inside. The keys are lost... It is time to find them! The keys are the Great Aphorisms (mahavakyas), that Upanishads contain, such as: “You are That”. How shell we understand this famous Great Aphorism? Whether you believe or not, but these words mean literally: Man is not limited by his physical body, named so and so… Man is not limited even by his subtle (e.g. - astral) body, that functions in his dream state.. In fact, the body and the consciousness ("I") of every being are two totally separate entities. The body is limited, it has beginning and the end. But "I" of the individual is not limited, because it is beyond all qualities, such as shape, smell, sound etc. "I" of every individual is "I" of all (our real "I" is only one). "I" is un-destructable Consciousness, a witness. There is, of course, death for all that has form, including bodies and brains.. But there is no death for the subtle consciousness that is only an observer. This witness is also present in everything as a substance. It is merely a widespread illusion to feel ourselves being separate (“independent”) individuals. Outside India, of course, some understanding of the fact that nobody is separate does take place. For example, both dependence and obligations of individuals to society are recognized. But the level of this recognition is not deep enough. Western Mr. John feels that: "after I solve this problem, I'll be free from need to communicate with Mr. Bill"... Thus - after "problem is solved", there is usually very little affection or gratitude remains... The real problem is that most western people are unable to grasp internal connection which pervades entire Universe. They can't understand connection between their past and present lives as well. Because this connection can only be realized through a lot of personal experiences. At least a short-term separation of consciousness of individual from his/her physical body must take place prior to he/she can understand and believe. But such subtle experience is impossible for the people addicted to hundreds gross things. In other terms, soul of a common man doesn't want to leave his/her body (through which it always seeks physical enjoyments) even for a short time... Hence - due to absence of personal experiences – Man forgets His reality more and more... This process of Man's forgetting his own reality and getting immersed deeper and deeper into all what is related to physical (e.g. bodily) sensations is a way from God to hell. Nearly a whole of humankind is walking this very way nowadays. What you call a technical progress and what is an object of your feeling very pride today is merely on-going increase in number of physical sensations (of sound, touch, smell etc.) received per time unit. Being impressed and inspired by this sort of "success", you turn whole planet into a mass of garbage. Because it is our Nature, our Mother Earth, who pays her resources for you can enjoy faster processors, smaller micro-chips, faster vehicle, faster computer, Internet etc. You want spend whole life enjoying these artificial tools? Well, even if it is so, why should trees and animals pay their lives for this? Why REAL beauty and health-supporting ecosystems are being killed, and, also, why should we breath polluted air and pay for clean water for the sake of your virtual reality? Why should forests be cut and why animals must lose their homes for sake of new roads, communication lines, new settlements and so on? Nowadays, in order to make lots of money man keeps in his mind many things. But even paper can store information. And even a robot can calculate different situations: gain-loss etc. This is not a wisdom, but merely storing and manipulating the information. In fact, so many things cannot be grasped by even those considered learned among us. For example, theory of re-births, which is also known as reincarnation theory, is either rejected, or misunderstood by majority. Majority of the so-called "civilized" people cannot even discriminate between the object - the thing that is observed (such as body) and the subject (the Consciousness, e.g. - One, WHO observes, and thus WHO cannot be this inert body). The car, helicopter, airplane - they all have drivers. Man uses complicated tools to learn remote planets, but does not realize the presence of a driver in his own body! Consequently, e.g. - when there is no more wisdom that "I am not just a body, but rather a soul that temporary resides in it" - how can there be any fear of suffering after death (when time for the driver to change the vehicle, that is to say: to be born again and pay all the debts comes)? Neither any trace of love for God, nor any fear of sin can take place when there is no experience. By believing blindly and following advice of others, one can move to some extent, of course, but not very far. (We don't really believe others until we have our own experience!) But getting personal experience of spiritual kind is far not as easy as experiencing common physical sensations, because spiritual experience is based on withdrawal of all senses back to their source. It takes long practice: exactly - as many years as we spent practicing outgoing movements of our 5 senses. This is why there is such strong lack of individuals (especially in modern western society) who realize the long-term responsibility of a mankind. Let's take as an example treatment of animals in our society. As we observe today - almost all people in our world are non-vegetarians. Thus, many farms, where animals are usually kept in rough conditions and where later they are being ultimately killed, are keep running... In the atmosphere of ignorance, be it on West or in many places of East, unnecessary cruelty towards animals is a common thing. In fact, let me repeat it here: this planet Earth, with all it's inhabitants, is our own Divine Body. To allow our body to function smoothly, each it's limb, be it man, animal, river, sea, or forest, must be healthy and happy. As Sai Baba Himself says: “All beings are cells of divine organism”. Baba also says that it is not enough merely to read and then utter great aphorisms from Upanishads, but that we must spend a good deal of time (could be dozens of years or more - depending on individual) contemplating deeply (or meditating, as it is also called) on these truths. Only after we clearly understood what was taught, can we implement new knowledge properly. First – knowledge, next – actions, last – real happiness and prosperity. The actual realization of upanishadic knowledge is called jnana. May it dawn on humanity. May we realize that we ALL are ONE. There are no many, but only One and Single Person exists. He is ever existing. Ultimately, there is neither death nor birth for Him. He is our core - the Center, the Consciousness. He is booth the actor, and a witness of all actions. Everything what we may want to acquire, already belongs to us. There is, thus, no any need to be greedy, or to do anything in order to demonstrate others our “betterness”. Acts done with such motivations, only result in increasing bitterness. Building a house bigger than the neighbor has requires more and more resources from Nature... As result of this stupid competition (that takes place nearly everywhere now) our lowland tropical forests are almost gone, our air, waters and earth are seriously polluted. Why should I criticize? You can see all this yourself: in externally clean cities people enjoy many dirty activities, and they also teach same things their youth.. In most cases, they're too greedy to leave any piece of land beautiful and natural as it is. (Even within National Parks they make too many unnecessary constructions from iron and cement, and then even collect money from those who come to take rest from noise and smoke of cities). It is only due to widespread idea of "I am separate" (which, in turn, produces such feelings like: "I am so smart, so special", "My nation is number 1 in the world", "My children are so special" etc.) the planet undergoes such harsh times.

Dear readers! The more detailed explanation, that I've provided above, is based mainly on clarifications that Sathya Sai Baba made regarding meaning of Upanishads. Some of my own experiences (partially - separation from my physical body, visits to Sai Baba etc.) made me certain about what I've learned from Great Teachers and what I share with you now. Of course, to those of you who is far from any eastern school of thought, and who yet don't have enough experiences, the things that I told will sound very unclear, strange etc. It takes time and effort... Even in western schools of thought similar ideas are expressed by hundreds authors (their origin can be traced to East, however). In fact, in the Holy Gospel of Christians, Master Jesus propounds the very same truths of unity, eternity and bliss.

Alexey Zborovskiy, Bali, May 2008